<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Tank, Empty by JoAsakura</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27663191">Tank, Empty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura'>JoAsakura</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Destiny (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:23:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,866</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27663191</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Uldren is saved by a literal ghost from his past. </p><p>An AU for the Sunbreaker: The Books of Mouse series.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Male Guardian/Uldren Sov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Taken War</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have had the most miserable writer's block for months (thanks 2020). writing has been... agonizing, and it's killing me to not be able to tell stories.</p><p>Anyways, I've been wanting to do an AU for some drawings I did of Mouse as a singer at the Empty Tank, and well, here we go</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>1</p><p>Uldren is going out of his mind in the red dust of Mars. His ship, wrecked and his brain no better, screaming silently into the void in hopes of catching an echo of Mara’s starlight in response.</p><p>There is an unfamiliar darkness, seeping up through the cracks, bitter and whispering. The Reef needs him to find her, he is nothing without her it says. But there is nothing but Vex and Cabal and Hive and he is alone and he is…</p><p>“Awoken galliot broadcasting automated distress, this is cityhawk bravo transmat five six five.” The voice is so sudden, so jarringly unexpected, that Uldren’s thoughts come to a dead halt and he slowly turns to look at his ruined fighter as if the speaker is there with him.</p><p>He wants to tell them to go away. He doesn’t need one of the Traveler’s abominations aiding him, the whispers say and his ego agrees. But the voice is insistent, with a flange to it, and a hint of a reefborn accent, familiar in a way he can’t quite place. (Worse, it’s an <em>Awoken Guardian</em>,) he scrubs his dirty, bloodied hands across his face. The greatest insult the Traveler could have laid upon his people. He keys the mic, intending to tell them to shove it where the Light doesn’t shine when the Guardian returns.</p><p>“Awoken galliot, assuming you cannot answer, I’ll be conducting a sweep. Don’t worry, corsair, we’ll get you home.”</p><p>It’s so… <em>kind</em>… that Uldren stares at the mic and lets it drop. “Shit.”</p><p> </p><p>2</p><p>The ship hovers a ways from where Uldren has hidden the galliot, and he peers from vantage, through the scope of his long gun, to see his would-be saviour walk right into a Cabal patrol. He scoffs, wondering at the lack of awareness that set the idiot in this predicament.</p><p>There’s an immediate skirmish between the Cabal and the lone Guardian, and he watches with tactical interest.  The cabal’s tank’s ordnance explodes against the glimmering purple dome the Guardian throws up, red dust kicking up around it. The light is so sudden, so disorienting that they don’t see what Uldren does, the man diving out of it, rolling behind a rock before the auto rifle in his hands begins to sing, mowing down trooper after trooper. Moments later, golden fire licks down his arms, coalescing into a maul longer than the Guardian is tall. He launches himself over the cover and after the ensuing inferno that engulfs the little gulley, only one figure strides out.</p><p>They all walk the same, he thinks, watching the man in red-gold heavy plate, flanked by his Little Light, bounce the maul on his shoulder before it dissolves into a shower of golden sparks. Smug bastards.</p><p>A Titan, he believes they’re called. The walls in the wild. The guardian cocks his head, and Uldren hears that same voice in his comms. “Awoken Galliot, we are approaching your position. One guardian, one ghost, weapons cold. We’ve cleared your area of immediate threats, but I can’t guarantee we’re gonna have peace and quiet for long.”</p><p>Uldren sits back from his scope. It wasn’t a lack of awareness. The fool had done it deliberately. He taps the comm in his ear and peers through the scope again. “Guardian. I see you. I didn’t ask for your help.”</p><p>He watches the solidly armoured form pause, the glowing eyes of his helmet scanning the horizon until he catches sight of Uldren. The Guardian puts one hand on his hip and with the other, waves. Uldren suppresses the immediate urge to shoot him in his grotesquely helmeted face. “Awoken Galliot, I’ll be happy to leave your dumb ass here if that’s what you want, but Mars isn’t exactly a tourist paradise and I’m here now anyways”</p><p>Uldren sighs, then lifts the gun in response. “Come on up. Ship’s hidden in the cave.”</p><p> </p><p>3</p><p>The Guardian lets out a low whistle when he sees the wreck of Uldren’s ship. “There’s no way all that damage happened on crash. Are you ok?” Beside him, the little light manifests a pack with a red circle on it.</p><p>“I’m fine,” Uldren sniffs. “I’ve been trying to salvage parts off it to repair scanners so I can…” he pauses. The City cannot know his sister is missing. “… so I can contact my people.”</p><p>“You’ve got a gash in your head. And if you’ve been here since the assault on the Dreadnaught, you’re probably dehydrated at best.” It’s clear to him the Guardian has caught that pause and assessed it, and he curses himself. But before he can protest, there’s an electrolyte drink in his hands, and that ridiculous helmet is too close. He recoils by reflex and the Guardian sits back.</p><p>“Oh, <em>oh</em>, yeah. Sorry. I wear this so much, I forget sometimes,” he knocks an armoured knuckle on the gleaming curve of the helmet, then taps a switch on the side. There’s a soft sound as the helmet unlatches, and the Guardian pries it off, wrinkling his nose at the cold, thin, dusty air.</p><p>Uldren nearly drops his juicebox as the man reaches to pull back the tight coif of ballistic weave. The amethyst hair beneath sticks out in almost every direction from static and the little light laughs in imitation of a real person. His skin is a pale violet, as luminous as any living Awoken, and his shining pale green eyes wrinkle in a laugh as he offers a hand. “Hi, I’m Mouse. What’s your name?”</p><p>Uldren almost doesn’t hear him, staring directly into the face of someone he thought he would never see again. Someone he thought was dead. <em>Someone who’s death you directly contributed to,</em>the whispers add over the sound of his hammering heart.</p><p>“Mouse,” he rasps, sitting back heavily against the wreck of his ship. “That’s a stupid name.” The words come out before he even knows what he’s saying. “You don’t have a real one?”</p><p>“It’s as good as any,” Mouse snorts lightly, opening up the medical kit. “And you are?”</p><p>“Uldren,” Uldren says without actually wanting to.  The Guardian looks up from his work, one dark-purple eyebrow inching up his face.</p><p>“As in…”</p><p>“It’s a common name,” Uldren says weakly.</p><p>“Uh-huh,” Mouse looks unconvinced and Uldren can’t feel his feet as the Guardian leans closer to tend to the gouge on his head. Uldren catches a whiff of the other man’s hair, and over the scent of the recycled air from his helmet, there’s the ghost of flowers, of distant forests. “Sit still.”  His hands are deft, gentle, even with the heavy gloves. “This isn’t as bad as it looks, by the way.”</p><p><em>Bevan used to smell like the woods he loved so much</em>, the whispers remind him. Uldren wants to touch his face, to confirm for himself that he’s not hallucinating.</p><p>“Why are you spying on secure Awoken channels?” he says, mostly to reassert control over his wild imaginings.</p><p>“I’ve been doing rescue sweeps for weeks, looking for survivors from your fleet,” Mouse’s hands still, then he sits back on his haunches with a squeak of metal and plasteel. “The Reef doesn’t have the resources to do it, and it’s something I’m good at. I know… Guardians… especially…” he gestures at himself, then laughs sadly. “I know a lot of Awoken don’t look too kindly on us. But I want to help. You’re still my people, and Petra Venj knows we can be pretty useful.”</p><p>Uldren tries to formulate something cogent to say when the little light bobs around the Guardian. “Cabal patrol sweeping the ridge. If we go now, we’ll have to fight our way out.”</p><p>Mouse is popping a fresh clip in his rifle when Uldren grabs his arm with an impulsive spasm of hope. “We can wait them out. They’ll pass, and neither of us have to waste the ammo.”</p><p> </p><p>Mouse looks startled, then grins. “If we’re gonna be here a bit, we should probably eat something.”</p><p> </p><p>4</p><p> </p><p>The meal isn’t much of anything: an energy gel pack, a bar made out of dried vegetables, and for a bit they eat in silence. Uldren watches Mouse’s jaw work under the glimmering amethyst stubble, and feels the little light’s single blue eye assessing him.</p><p>He shifts uncomfortably, then coughs. “You said you were good at rescue work, that’s not something I associate with Guardians, I must confess.” He means it as a minor jab, but the sad smile he gets in response catches him further off guard than he already is.</p><p>“I was a part of a unit.. my. Uh. My husband formed,” Uldren chokes on a bite, but Mouse looks at his half of the food bar, turning it over in his fingers. “We provided support to outlying civilian settlements, as well as Guardian fireteams in crisis. Did that for a long time.”</p><p>“He’s a lucky man, to have such a… conscientious mate. But, I didn’t realize Guardians got. Married,” Uldren blurts out, feeling a sudden, irrational stab of jealousy. Mouse tucks his hair behind his ear, a gesture so ingrained that even death couldn’t strip him of it, and ducks his head.</p><p>“It’s not common, but we do love. And we do… mourn,” he says finally. “We’re just like real people.”</p><p>“He’s dead, then.” It comes out more relieved then Uldren intends, but the Guardian. Mouse. <em>Bevan</em>. He doesn’t notice. The little light does, though, and he winces.</p><p>“Twilight Gap. It would have been the Reef War to you,” Mouse says finally, pushing to his feet. “I’m gonna check to see if that patrol has passed. See if I can’t get you a ride out of here if I have to fight to buy you time.”</p><p>Uldren presses his lips together and watches Mouse’s broad, armoured shoulders retreat.</p><p>The little light, <em>the ghost</em>. Just bobs there. “You knew him, didn’t you.”</p><p>“I don’t need to explain myself to you, little light,” Uldren growls. “I…” the dusty red light silhouettes the Guardian’s form at the mouth to the cave and Uldren sighs. “Yes. I knew him. I loved him.”</p><p>The ghost’s stare is relentless.</p><p>“I didn’t kill him, but he’s dead because of me anways,” he adds after a moment. He’s never spoken of this to anyone, let alone a bobbing metal ball. “And now, in my darkest moment, who appears but an echo of my past crimes to save me?”</p><p> </p><p>5</p><p>He waits for the ghost to rat him out as Mouse returns, but the little light holds his tongue as if considering.</p><p>They talk, small things, inconsequential things. Mouse is so much more knowledgeable about weapons than Bevan ever was, but it’s workmanlike. When Uldren asks him a question Bevan would have adored, about the remaining martian ecosystem, he lights up, long fingers dancing as he talks about lichen and deep-root system grasses.</p><p>“Come back to the Reef with me, instead.” Uldren says suddenly, catching one of Mouse’s hands. “You have family there, I’m sure.”</p><p>“I died a long time ago, Uldren <em>It’s a Common Name</em>.” Mouse laughs softly. “I’m sure everyone who remembered me is gone now. And if they’re not? I can’t imagine it’d be a pleasant surprise finding out a loved one is now an undead warrior of the Light. Finding out that I don’t remember them at all. I can’t imagine how that would hurt.” He doesn’t try to pull his hand away, and impulsively, Uldren leans forward.</p><p>The first kiss is brief, a brush of lips, and Mouse startles. “Sorry,” Uldren says and he means it. “I didn’t mean to offend.”</p><p>A smile quirks across pale-violet lips. “I didn’t mind. It’s just been a while.”</p><p>“That’s a crime. You always hated being alone,” Uldren whispers, dirty fingers threading through Mouse’s hair, and he kisses him again. Mouse’s mouth is soft beneath his this time, and even beneath the heavy armour, his body is pliant.</p><p>Uldren is in his lap, hands digging into the straps on Mouse’s chestplate, holding him fast as he kisses him hard enough to hold back the joy and the pain in his heart.</p><p>He only stops when the corsairs finally ping his comms in response to Mouse’s call, and they sit there, panting softly, foreheads pressed close. “I’ll get you out of here, your highness, I promise,” Mouse whispers and it’s so much louder than the others in his brain. “Maybe we can finish this another time.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Red War</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Uldren gets a chance to pay Mouse back, when the Light goes out.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>TWO: THE RED WAR</p><p>1</p><p>His eyes hurt all the time these days. What he thought was just grit from the Martian desert had ached and ached, and there was nothing there at all except the whispers creaking from the fissures in his brain.</p><p>He wondered if there had ever been a time he didn’t hear them.</p><p>(In a cold cave on Mars. Warm violet lips on his.)</p><p>(It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was never supposed to have been like this.)</p><p>He leaves the regency to Petra, tries to find his sister with the tools at his disposal.</p><p>She is not there, she is never there, but if he stops looking, the alternative is the whispers seeping up from the cracks in his soul like some fetid gas.</p><p>(In another timeline, the whispers, that false itch of starlight behind his teeth, it drives him away from his people into the arms of the Kings. He betrays them for a ghost of Mara behind his eyes. In this one, he pulls away for their safety, and his own. All his ghosts and fears are stuck in the logjam of his constant, incipient migraine)</p><p>He hasn’t reached out to Mouse since Mars. Even though the Little Light’s comm code is right. There.  As easy as breathing. He wanted Bevan to be free of him. Of Mara. Of the twisted, knotted troubles between them.</p><p>And now he was. </p><p>It doesn’t feel like a victory. But now, Uldren Sov sits in a pressurized hardsuit on the ruined dock of a half-forgotten Hull, and watches ghosts of a different sort.</p><p>2</p><p>It’s been two days since the schism. The hallways leading to the docks still smell like thermal grenades.  And Uldren keeps refreshing the connection on an encrypted comm. The Crow it belongs to isn’t responding to the ping and the anxiety is killing him.</p><p>Bevan will never forgive him, he knows this. His wounds will heal but Uldren knows him well enough to know that it will be a thousand years before he can get within a hundred feet of his husband without getting shot in the face. Maybe more.</p><p>And he would deserve it.</p><p>He can still smell Bevan’s blood. Still see the rage and grief in his shock-pale face. It had been wrong and it had been horrible and it had been necessary. Necessary because what his sister, his Queen, wanted was always necessary. (This is a lie. He knows, in the part of his heart he keeps shut tight that it was to punish Bevan for the war raging in their Hulls. To punish Uldren for not stopping him at the outset. And he did it anyways because he couldn’t say no to her. Never her.)  </p><p>But Bevan will heal. Will lead their people on Earth and will hate him forever. But he’ll be free of Mara. Of Uldren.  And that will be enough.</p><p>He just needs to know they made it.</p><p>Finally, finally, he gets a return ping. “Crow Actual this is CW189,” comes the whispered message, garbling with deep space artefacts. </p><p>“This is Crow Actual,” Uldren rasps, eyes squeezed shut. “You’re past your update window.”</p><p>“I haven’t been able to get away,” CW189 whispers. Uldren can picture his reedy fingers twitching. “But it’s done.”</p><p>Uldren’s eyes snap open. “What do you mean ‘it’s done’?”</p><p>“I heard Mara, the Queen, in my head. She was always our queen, even if she bore no crown like those cowards back home,” his agent wheezes a little laugh. “I heard her in my head and I knew what to do.”</p><p>“You were to observe and report,” Uldren hisses.</p><p>“I must protect the secrets of our people, Crow Actual,” CW189 sounds giddy. “The would have ruined it all.”</p><p>“What did you do.” It takes everything to keep his voice still.</p><p>“I started a fire. She didn’t tell me to, but I knew. I knew I Had to protect us. But it wasn’t enough. I had to cut off the rebellion at the head. A knife quick and quiet between the ribs. So many still survived the crash, though. I’m going to finish them as soon as I can.”</p><p>“Belay that, CW189. Hold position…” Uldren pauses, bringing up his drones in his suit’s sensorium. There are a couple on Earth he can redirect. “I’m sending you… reinforcements.”</p><p>CW189’s mad, breathy giggle churns his stomach and he keys off the mic. </p><p>When he gets the drone’s kill confirm later, it brings him no satisfaction. He just feels cold.</p><p>(It wasn’t supposed to have been like this.)</p><p>3</p><p>He feels the Light go out as he’s doing a sweep of the Reef, still searching for Mara. His brain and his eyes ache in equal measure.</p><p>Reports immediately start rolling in about Cabal, about the Red Legion specifically, sweeping through the system. Start rolling in about the few Guardians in the Reef being killed, truly killed by their foes as their god deserts them.</p><p>He keys the Little Light’s comms and is met by silence.</p><p>Uldren doesn’t even know where to begin looking until weeks have passed. </p><p>He’s on the fractured collection of rocks known as the Tangled Shore, monitoring Legion movements with some of his Crows when he sees something bright arcing towards him. Jolyon moves to shoot it down, but Uldren pushes the barrel of his gun down. “No, it’s a Ghost.”</p><p>“I thought you didn’t care for Guardians,” Till snorts, but he sits back.</p><p>“I don’t,” Uldren answers absently as the little contraption rockets forward. It’s wearing the remains of what had been a festive pink and green shell, now battered and cracked. </p><p>“There you are!” It shouts, furious, as close to crying as a little metal ball could possibly be. “I’ve been trying to get through to you, to anyone, for days but…”</p><p>“Where’s your master?” Uldren looks past Stellamaris as if Mouse could somehow be hiding behind an overly animate tennis ball. </p><p>“My Guardian. They HAVE HIM and YOU OWE HIM!” the Ghost spits. “There’s no one. They took him, and I can’t contact commander Zavala. Or Saladin. I can’t find anyone, and…”</p><p>“Slow down, slow down. Who has him?”</p><p>“The Red Legion. They have him here in the Shore and they’re going to kill him,” Stel sobs out. “He’s got no powers and they’re going to kill him. I can’t save him alone. Please.”</p><p>“Joly, get everyone back to our base. I’m going hunting,” Uldren says, biting off the words so that there’s no chance of argument. </p><p>4</p><p>The encampment is as blunt and ugly as any Legion outpost. Uglier by the row of Lightless Guardians in chains. </p><p>He finds Mouse in his sights almost immediately and forces himself to not look away. Battered, broken. Dark blood matted in his violet hair. There’s a muzzle across his face, and for a moment Uldren feels a rush of unearned pride. Mouse had probably bitten one of them.</p><p>“What happened Little Ghost?” Uldren asks, looking at the others with him. Awoken. Exos. No humans. Only a skeleton crew of Legionaries. That meant there were others out and about. Not a good sign.</p><p>“He was hurt bad in the attack,” Stel whispers. “But we got out. Found civilians fleeing. He tried to protect them, even injured. Tried to get them to safety. But we ran into a patrol.” The ghost’s voice breaks and Uldren finds it harder to think of him as an… it.  “They were killing injured Guardians for sport. They’d beheaded some. Stuck their ghosts where their heads had been. But Awoken and Exos. They were keeping them. To bring here. I don’t know why.”</p><p>“We’ll bring him home,” Uldren lowers his gun. His eyes are burning. “And I’m going to kill every single one of these bastards.”</p><p>5</p><p>He only has to release the Guardians it turns out, as he works out how best to slaughter the Legionaries. Even starved, critically wounded and Lightless, they fight like they know how to do nothing else. He’s never liked Guardians, but he respects them in this.</p><p>Even Mouse, who can barely stand when Uldren destroys the lock on his shackles, empties a sidearm in the head of one of his captors before collapsing.</p><p>It’s no small feat to herd a group of Lightbearers to do anything, but he’s grateful when Joly and the others clearly disobey his unspoken orders and show up to give them an evac before reinforcements arrive.</p><p>Mouse doesn’t wake up for a few days, long after the others have been reunited with resistance groups spreading out across the system.  Uldren finds excuse after excuse to stay with him as they move him to an outpost on the edge of the Reef proper.</p><p>The Ghost, Stellamaris, sits beside him, pumping what meagre Light he can muster into his fallen partner.  And one day, Uldren sits beside him, takes one pale-violet hand in his own, and holds it. There are faint scars webbed there, the echo of violence that Uldren knows he should have refused to commit in her name. </p><p>Carefully, he brings Mouse’s hand to his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Bev.  I’m so…”</p><p>Mouse sits up so abruptly, that Uldren almost shoots him by accident as he stumbles backwards from the cot.. Luminescent green eyes dart, panicked, then immediately well with tears as the little Ghost circles him, before settling on his shoulder.</p><p>Mouse looks at him, half swaddled in blankets still, then nods silently and mouths “thank you.” </p><p>There are bruises and cuts still healing on almost every part of his body. An ugly wound through his shoulder that Uldren dressed as best he could with a field kit before getting him to the outpost. An untended head injury that had a Corsair medic amazed Mouse wasn’t dead. He’s a mess of gel-dressings and IVs, but he’s alive. And he’s awake.</p><p>Uldren hasn’t heard the whispers in days. All he hears is his heart, hammering in shock and relief.</p><p>Carefully, Uldren moves to sit across from him. There’s nothing of the smug, confident Titan in Mouse’s body language, just exhaustion, fear he can’t ratchet down. “It’s ok. Couldn’t let you get away with just saving my ass on Mars, could I?” He jokes gently, and Mouse looks as if he might start laughing, or crying, or both. “Hey, no. You’re safe. We’ll get you back to your people and…”</p><p>Mouse tips his head back against the wall of the little room, shoulders shaking as he closes his eyes. “They’re just going to make me fight again,” he whispers in a shattered voice. </p><p>“Then, let’s find you someplace where maybe you don’t have to,” Uldren says before he can stop himself.  “I know a fat bastard who might be able to help.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>